We were obliged to turn back before we go there, but not soon enough to avoid a Pelter all the way home. We met Mr. Woolls — I talked of its being bad weather for the Hay — & he returned me the comfort of its being much worse for the Wheat — Jane Austen to her nephew, 9 July 1816

Dear Friends and readers,

These four letters form a group: They are all to James’s children and written in the season after Austen was forced home to Chawton because of Henry’s bankruptcy, unable to oversee the publication of Emma. She is feeling this. She is also feeling her fatal illness, and her letters show a lack of energy, a plangency.

No 140, Sunday 21 April to Caroline (age 11); No 141, two months later a short one, Sunday 23 June to Anna Lefroy; No 142, a couple of weeks later, on Tuesday 9 July to James-Edward Austen-Leigh; and finally No 143 six days later, Mon 15 July, to Caroline again. After that summer, with the next letter written in September, with Jane having spent the summer at Cheltenham and staying on.

That LeFaye does not note this summer-long stay seems to me nearly criminal of her in an edition of this woman’s letters. In the first to Caroline Fanny Austen Knight and her father, Edward were coming for a visit and Tomalin tells us from Fanny’s notes it was the time of this visit Jane Austen showed outward signs of sickness: Fanny walked with “At Cass” and not “At Jane.” LeFaye does include this in her Family Record:

From DLF’s ‘Family Record’:

…Certainly by the spring of 1816 Jane already knew there was something wrong with her and had arranged to visit Cheltenham to drink the spa water, which was advertised as being ‘singularly efficacious in all bilious complaints, obstructions of the liver and spleen’, for on 22 May, the day after Fanny and Edward had left Chawton, Cassandra and Jane arrived at Steventon on the first stage of their journey into Gloucestershire. They stayed at Cheltenham for a fortnight and on the return trip called on the Fowles at Kintbury. Fulwar Fowle’s eldest Daughter, Mary Jane, told Caroline Austen afterwords ‘that Aunt Jane went over all the old places, and recalled old recollections associated with them, in a very particular manner — looked at them, my cousin thought, as if she never expected to see them again — The Kintbury family, during that visit, received an impression that her health was failing — altho’ they did not [underlined] know of any particular malady.’

It was once thought that Austen died of Addison’s disease (Zachary Cope, “Jane Austen’s Final Illness,” British Journal of Medicine (July 18, 1964), with an alternative view suggesting tuberculosis (Katherine White); a more recent considered view (accepted by Tomalin), which takes into consideration all her immediate symptoms, is she developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma. See Annette Upfal, Jane Austen’s lifelong health problems and final illness: New evidence points to a fatal Hodgkin’s disease and excludes the widely accepted Addison’s, Medical Humanities, 31: (2005):3-11. A third hypothesis is that of Linda Robinson Walker, “Jane Austen’s Death: The Long Reach of Typhus,” Persuasions On-line, 31:1, Winter 2010. Recent sequels (The Mysterious Death of Jane Austen by Lindsay Ashford) and blogs suggest the preposterous theory she was murdered — somehow people cannot accept that death is natural (see also Jane’s Death: a Medical Mystery).

Austen seems talking down more than usual; she is not keeping up the fiction she did before of Caroline as her equal; she is clearly talking to an 11 year old, and we are hampered by a lack of notes about ages. Caroline was bron 1805; Mary Jane, Frank’s daughter, 1807 and Cassy, Charles’s, 1808 – as cousins peers and there is an exchange of gifts going on, Mary Jane’s birthday is next Saturday and there will be a family party, and Jane clearly wants to invite Caroline as she thinks Caroline will enjoy it and the other two cousins like to have her there, but if you read not so carefully you still pick up that Caroline’s difficult mother who would not let Anna Lefroy go to London or Godmersham or parties at times is now being difficult over this party. Austen is trying to persuade her though reverse logic — of course Mary Lloyd Austen will be reading this letter over Caroline’s shoulder. So Austen says of course there may be circumstances to make the visit inconvenient, and goes on how they are ashamed to invite Mary as such a time for she will come during Wash Day (a really rigorous day because washing was a huge day long chore) and Monday will be the last day she might avoid this, but if she would come “so much the better.” Why? because (as she does not say) Caroline will then be able to come.

She opens with the death of the unmarried sister of Thomas Austen of Adlestrop — Austen and her mother visited them in 1805 (was it?) and they liked one another. The woman was in her eighties and Austen points out to the 11 year old who it is implied was sad about the death (so maybe she liked this aunt who maybe was kind to her?). “The death of a person at her advanced age, so fit to die, & by her own feelings so ready to die, is not to be regretted.”

I don’t know about that — again not to overdo Jane’s illness but she might be thinking of herself so much younger and not well.

She left 10 pounds to Mrs Austen who is not exactly rich.

Then a letter from the Leigh-Perrots whose health is not in great shape either.

A list of who is coming: not just Fanny and her father, but son Edward. Henry has been at Godmersham for 2 weeks. WE remember that Henry loved to stay there, enjoyed it very much (silly book has him in love with Elizabeth — Mysterious Death of it’s called), has been there 2 weeks. A place which maybe enabled him to forget his worse than poverty. So it did him much good.

Austen sends the first bit of flattery to Mary: Henry says how much he enjoyed hhimself at STeventon. I suggest that’s thrown in lest Mary resent Henry enjoying Godmersham and thus (by implication to a mind like hers) somehow deprecating Steventon.

An 18th century wax fashion doll

Mrs Austen her usual hypochrondiac self but writing to Caroline Jane takes Grandmamma’s unwellness seriously in tone. But read the content and it’s says she always has a pain in the head – perhaps it is lessening and working outside hard will help her recover. I think were Austen in strong linguistic spirits there would be irony here but I don’t feel it. Then Cassy’s present to Caroline, for her wax doll, and the series of hopes the Steventon family can come. If her papa, (James) came Wednesday, he could (should) bring Caroline with him and that would suit everyone — but gain there is a kind of chary tone here, for maybe Mary will not like it.. And then the passages about Mary Jane’s birthday and attempt to soften and get Mary to agree to come and allow Caroline to.

Apparently the letter is cut here – I suggest perhaps some frank speaking to Mary? at any rate someone described what was here: a mention of JEAL, the sad weather (it’s raining in the first 3 letters) for Easter and all one can say for the ride on Saturday then was it brought JEAL home.

Jane Austen likes JEAL a lot as we will begin to see. He was smart, as literary a person as she could come across — they shared a feeling together I think, got along.

Diana Birchall’s rejoinder:

Another letter to Caroline, and a rather flat, dull one, for Jane does not confide in or open her heart to the eleven-year-old. Enclosed is a note to James, to announce the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh, Cassandra’s godmother, sister of Rev. Thomas Leigh of Stoneleigh Abbey, at age eighty. Jane utters a few conventionalities – lost a valued old friend, death of someone of such an advanced age, ready to die, not to be regretted. She has left a token twenty pounds (“a little remembrance”) to Mrs. Austen, who is “not quite well” and “seldom gets through the 24 hours without some pain in her head.”

Comings and goings: Edward and Fanny are coming from Godmersham, spending two days in Town, then arriving at Chawton. Edward’s daughter Cassy (age ten) has worked a “whatever it may be” for Caroline’s wax doll. James is to come to Chawton on Wednesday, and Jane hopes that “if it suited everyone” Caroline might come too. Next Saturday will be a Fair at Alton, and Mary Jane’s birthday (Frank’s daughter, just turning nine). Jane says they are “almost ashamed” to ask Caroline’s Mama “to be at the trouble of a long ride” because they “must wash.” Presumably the house was turned upside down during a grand wash…

Now I read Ellen’s notes on this letter, and see that she, too, feels Jane’s lack of spirits, maybe owing to the beginnings of her illness; and she does seem to be “talking down” and taking less pains to write an amusing letter to the girl. It’s a good point that Ellen makes that Jane is flattering Caroline’s mother Mary here with solicitousness hoping to get her to bring Caroline to the children’s party.

Two wry letters, meant to be funny in part but I do not think this “fun” comes across. I’d call the second oddly flat and at moments tedious. The first very short so I have placed it inside the blog instead of linked in through the comments.

My dear Anna

Cassy desires her best thanks for the book. She was quite delighted to see it: I do not know when I have seen her so much struck by anybody’s kindness as on this occasion. Her sensibility seems to be opening to the perception of great actions. These gloves having appeared on the Piano Forte ever since you were here on Friday; we imagine they must be yours. Mrs. Digweed returned yesterday through all the afternoon’s rain and was of course wet through, but in speaking of it she never once said “It was beyond everything,” which I am sure it must have been. Your Mama means to ride to Speen Hill tomorrow to see the Mrs. Hulberts who are both very indifferent. By all accounts they really are breaking now. Not so stout as the old Jackass.

The first to Anna who has sent Cassy a book – alas we don’t know which one. We do know that Cassy has shown shrewdness, an ability to write a letter herself, and humanity (to servants and the poor seeing them as people). That Cassy was struck is made fun of – maybe she was alive to the gentleness and kindness of Anna; Aunt Cassandra seems to Cassy have been perceived as stern. Austen makes fun of Anna’s gift as a great action.

The gloves left on the pianoforte must be Anna’s. We do know from this Anna had visited Friday. Then mockery of Mrs Digweed’s inability to use language expressively – in the next letter Austen herself complains and sounds plangently desperate over the rain (and it would have been hottish too) so when she says “it must have been,” she is not mocking the idea that Mrs Dignwood got soaked.

Does “breaking” means the Miss Huberts are now very sick – their health indifferent. Their old jackass is doing better – unless she is referring to a servant (then nastily). It was her youngest brother’s birthday and she records this on the letter.

Diane Reynolds’s rejoinder:

I found this a cryptic letter, one that cries out for explanatory notes, though none are provided. I agree with Ellen that JA is going for humor–first, a sort of over-the-top hyperbole I would say–that falls a bit flat: “Cassy desires her best thanks for the book … I don’t know when I have seen her so much struck by anybody’s kindness … Her sensibility seems to be opening to the perception of great actions.” Is this mockery of Cassy’s words or actions–probably not, as she is a young child. More likely it’s JA’s continued irritation at Anna–perhaps the book was lent with an air of bestowing great favor that annoyed Jane. Perhaps Jane is simply out of sorts.

She apparently has sent Anna’s gloves back with the letter, and in her typical roundabout fashion, rather than say, “we found your gloves,” she writes “these gloves, having appeared on the Piano Forte ever since you were here on Friday [only two days past], we imagine they must be yours.” Is this supposed to be dry wit? Jane comes across as a bit haughty, as she often does to Anna.

Then, more acerbic writing, with her typical mocking of people who say whatever is the current cant, in this case, the rain as “beyond everything.” As Nancy has informed us how bad the weather was that summer, JA probably heard “it was beyond everything” so often she was ready to scream. In this case, she appreciates Mrs. Digwood, though “wet through,” for NOT saying “it was beyond everything.” Austen is ever sensitive to language; rote repeated lines grate on her nerves. I remember similar feelings after 9/11–that feeling I would scream if anyone said “nothing will ever be the same again” one more time. One wonders too if this was a dig at Anna for repeating the phrase. The mentality is, of course, seamless with the novels, where Austen is quick to mock the tiresome repetitions of stock phrases. What’s not seamless with the novels is Austen’s hinting her thankfulness at being spared–in the novels, of course, we would simply have spoken or narrated cant repeated.

Now for the cryptic lines: “Your Mama means to ride to Speen Hill tomorrow to see the Mrs. Hulberts who are both very indifferent. By all accounts they are breaking now. Not so stout as the old Jackass.” The Hulberts are listed in Le Faye’s index, so JA is referring to real people: One sister died at Bath in 1819; the other died in 1840 at age 96. They are the kind of single women who would interest JA. But what on earth do her lines mean? I am assuming they both are or have been ill, which is the reason for the visit. What does “they are breaking now” mean? That a fever or cold is breaking? Or that they are getting sicker? Presumably getting sicker as they are “not so stout as the old Jackass.” But who is the old Jackass? Le Faye offers no explanation, though the letter cries out for one. And so we are left to wonder.

My sense is that the letter–note really–was written hastily to go with the gloves and left unrevised. Austen does not feel the need to be careful with Anna as with Stanier Clark or Lady Morley.

An older drawing of Chawton cottage, the cross-way, the pond from rain.

This one to James-Edward Austen-Leigh shows how much she favors him — I suspect because he’s a boy. She says she is grateful for every single line he sends. Then unusually for her she takes someone’s sickness seriously: Mary Lloyd Austen. LeFaye refers to Caroline’s Reminiscences and offers a page. It’s not a long line and she should have simply reprinted it. Caroline tells that her mother was very unwell and (like Jane and Cass) earlier in the year went to Cheltenham; they took Caroline and Mary Jane (another of these girl cousins). I would wonder if she made it up (so she could go too – the way Mary Musgrove resents others going anywhere and insists on going) but it’s clear that she did have some illness. The next line reminds us these are family letters and Austen is giving the news of Chawton to those at Steventon because she tells JEAL to thank his father for his share in the letter telling of his wife’s illness.

And then she goes on about the rain, bad, really bad, too bad, she begins to think it will never be fine again – except usually when you finish the sentence the weather has changed when you get to its end.

Then we get a paragraph crowded with detail of in the family is going where and how. What interests me is Jane is not included in any of these trips. She is to sit home in the dank rain. Was this the result of her not feeling well? She’s really left out. WE may suppose she’s happy to be home and writing Persuasion or rewriting NA – or fixing the juvenilia or Lady Susan or one of her fragments.

After the flat listing of who’s going where, a feeble attempt at making fun. JEAL had apparently dated his letter from home so no need to tell his aunt he’s home. She milks this as far as she can, and then tells of the boys she’s seen pass by and how she wrote (her letter went with the Cheese) and she cannot bear not to be thanked. She understands he cannot come visit until his mother is well — he must’ve been making an excuse for not coming .

Remember she is not going places like other. (I feel for her.) Maybe a change of scene would be good for him – he must go to Oxford. A note worrying lest he not get the better education his brains deserve butt his brigs on an associated joke, maybe physicians will order him to sea (those of her men not clergyman are sailors, and then by association the pond – we know from photographs right near the Chawton house before it was renovated in the mid-20th century there was a huge ugly puddle in the street. Austen sees it. She lives in a house by a very considerable pond and then the plangent lament.

The last part seems poignant to me from what’s not there. She doesn’t get to go, conversations she doesn’t get to haved. As ever she mentions the servants as real presences in their lives. One has gone and is replaced by William who sounds like he’d do for Downton Abbey. She is self-conscious about others seeing how much she writes – given the thin paper especially (cheap). Doesn’t she have anything else to do? Well nothing she’s rather. I understand this myself … He’s no reader so he will count the lines. The unacknowledged desperation of this realization …

The PS has been taken to be about Charles’s trial and that we must read about in the articles cited in the notes. Basically he was court-martialed because his ship wrecked; not his fault, but nonetheless it was a career blow it took a long time to recover from. I feel for him too this morning. His family would suffer – and we know that Henry has gone bankrupt so these are not good times financially for the Austens – nor for the health of Jane or her sister-in-law it appears. But it could also be about Henry’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Christy Somer:

This letter feels so poignantly touching -and its areas of gentle humor just enhance what is very obviously to me -JA’s real knowing & loving regard towards Edward (JEAL). And with Jane Austen being only a year away from her own earthly ending — these lines seem just presciently sad to me: “…& has been too bad for a long time, much worse than anyone can [underlined] bear, & I begin to think it will never be fine again.” Of course, she then quickly softens it all by adding:
“This is a finesse of mine, for I have often observed that if one writes about the Weather, it is generally completely changed before the Letter is read. I wish it may prove so now, & that when Mr. W. Digweed reaches Steventon tomorrow, he may find you have had a long series of hot, dry weather….”

Diane R:

I think this letter has been well covered. JA’s tone strikes me as almost frenetic, over-the-top, as if she doesn’t really have much of substance she wants to say to JEAL. She goes on about the miserable weather and then seems embarrassed to be doing so — it would be the repetition of the dull and commonplace that irritated her — so she begins weaving a story about the weather becoming dry and warm just because she is going on about how wet and unbearable it is, and probably mocking too the people who say they can’t “bear” it anymore.

She mocks JEAL for telling her he’s home when it would be obvious from the post-mark, perhaps going on too much about it, then giddily chides him for not thanking her for the letter that accompanied a cheese: “I cannot bear not to be thanked.” This is self-mockery, of course, but also true — she notices and points out the oversight. Are the first lines to him: “Many thanks. A thanks for every line” a reproach? Or mockery?

I think of Emma when JA hopes that JEAL’s physician will prescribe for his cure “the Sea”–or Chawton, “by the side of a very considerable pond.” (According to Le Faye, there once was a pond there.) I like JA calling a downpour of rain a “pelter” and enjoy the line, more true than she could know, that the post-chaises carry boys “full of future Heroes, Legislators, Fools, and Vilians.”

Weather … illness … visits … all motifs of Emma, the surface of country gentry life. What lurks beneath is Jane’s declining health, and the mention of Charles’s court martial–Le Faye tells us he was acquitted for the sinking of his ship.

I took the paper being so thin to mean it was almost see-through so that someone could almost read it from the other side if JEAL held it up. Is this true? All we are told of it is “two leaves quarto, wove.”

See Robin Vick, “Some Unexplained References in Jane Austen’s Letters,” N&Q, NS 41 (1994):318-21; Southam’s book, Jane Austen and the Navy (for the full story of Charles’s court martial and later career); Clive Caplan, “We suppose the trial to take place this week,” Report for 2008 (2009):152-59: he argues the paragraph refrs to HTA’s bankruptcy.

The first paragraph is in response to a short fiction Caroline has written! Remember how Caroline had begun to write when she saw her sister, Anna, writing. Austen is looking for a compliment when she admires the girl’s handwriting; the story was supposed to be comedy apparently but let’s recall just about all the comments in these letters treat Austen’s books as comedy — rendering them innocuous. She likes that Caroline is exposing absurdity (so Caroline is imitating the aunt) and wishes the burlesque information abouit the father having become a father one year after marriage be included. Why it’s funny to be a father at 22 after you married at 21 I don’t know. Anna Austen Lefroy got pregnant almost immediate

Then we get one of these odd wacky descriptions of wild burlesque very like what is found in the juvenilia. Austen never outgrew this — we can see aspects of it in her Plan of a Novel. She “had an early opportunity” to send Mary Jane Caroline’s letter (so they are exchanged around) by throwing it out the window. Mary Jame (Frank and Mary’s daughter) thanks Caroline, passed her time at Chawton happily, did not miss Cassy much (had she gone to visit her father at last).

Not to be outdone in the art areas, MaryJane has apparently made a drawing or story or needlework: the temple of Diana would be about marriage. She is glad that Caroline is writing again: the heroine of Caroline’s story is Fanny — or maybe Fanny is a small doll stuck or it was a manuscript in Caroline’s stays? doesn’t make much sense that except maybe she was hiding her story from her mother.

Austen concludes on Edward’s visit. She likes everythinga about the young man — he was intelligent, sensitive, a reading man – and I believe she is glad he is getting closer to her age; she ends on a joke that she of course does not get older so the two are coming nearer all the time. In fact as children grow into young adults they come nearer and nearer to us.

It’s a cheerful note and would not occasion any observation about a lack of energy only that it follows the other three and thus feels to be in the same quieter vein. Maybe she is writing Persuasion just now.

Diana Birchall summed up the group:

#141C to Anna (Sunday 23 June 1816) is short, but with a couple of Austenian silkenly neat turns of phrase, the kind she does almost by rote reflex – that Cassy is so delighted at receiving a book, it shows that “her sensibility seems to be opening to the perception of great actions” (i.e., sending a book, ludicrous exaggeration). The felicitous appearance of the gloves. The critique of cant (“it was beyond everything”). And the Mystery of Speen Hill – what was the situation with the elderly Mrs. Herberts? I agree with Diane that “breaking” must be in sense of their health breaking up. Note the sardonic tone, the rude joke about Anna’s stepmother Mary Austen who is riding to Speen Hill: “Not so stout as the old Jackass” (which is to bear her weight).

#142. (Tuesday 9 July 1816) There is something uncomfortable, I agree with Ellen and Diane, about this letter to her nephew, young JEAL. It is as if she is making a studied attempt to produce the jocularity and lightness agreeable to a young man, but she isn’t feeling it. She does try…the “finesse” about the weather, calling it bad in hopes that in the general way of things it will change before the letter is read. “…when Mr. W. Digweed reaches Steventon
tomorrow, he may find You have had a long series of hot, dry weather” is in the nonsense vein of “Oh, Susannah!” (“It rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry…”) A patch of circular logistics, Yalden’s Coach clearing off some, others going to Town, a party going to Broadstairs, the Kent beach town later associated with Charles Dickens.

She writes a rather long witticism about JEAL not mentioning coming home, so she imagines him confined by illness, “dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort of Tenderness, to deceive me.” This falls unusually flat; she doesn’t usually belabor a nonworking witticism this heavily or this long. It shows she’s not quite on her game – or her feelings aren’t in this forced letter – or she’s concealing that she’s feeling badly about something else. Even so, she can’t help but paint a wonderfully imaginative and hilarious word picture about schoolboys: “We saw a countless number of Postchaises full of Boys pass by yesterday morning – full of future Heroes, Legislators, Fools, and Vilains.”

It sounds a little like Sanditon, her telling JEAL, “…a little change of Scene may be good for you, & Your Physicians I hope will order you to the Sea, or to a house by the side of a very considerable pond.” Burlesque, of course, as why would a physician specify a pond; but it’s uncanny when you think of what is going on in Chawton today with the terrible flooding. You can see pictures here, as well as the appeal for funds from Chawton House Library

A couple of years ago the Chawton AGM was a rainy one, and I remember standing on the spot in the picture, which was ankle deep in water – no wonder it should be so much more badly flooded now! And yes, to echo Ellen, how very strongly and poignantly Austen’s words resound at this moment: “Oh! it rains again; it beats against the window.” That sentence is real, if her joking is not; it feels straight from the heart, what she is really feeling and thinking. Almost, “I cannot get out, said the starling.”

The description of the soggy journey in the Donkey-carriage, with its expressive word Pelter, is more vivid than anything else in the letter, and more successfully jocular: “We met Mr. Woolls – I talked of its being bad weather for the Hay – & he returned me the comfort of its being much worse for the Wheat.” I have nothing more to add to the reference to Henry’s bankruptcy, except the obvious one of this being why she does not seem quite comfortable within herself in this letter.

#143, to Caroline Austen. Monday 15 July 1816.

Another shortish letter to a young niece, with the requisite couple of jokes (if Caroline’s handwriting improves soon she may not have to shut her eyes at it), and the venerable old man in a story being only 22. The description of throwing the letter to Mary Jane and having the girl communicate through her, is an attractive, playful word picture. Diana’s Temple may have been another youthful manuscript, but I don’ t know what the lost Fanny might be – a small pet? A joke about age and it’s done.

************************

I call attention once again to the plangency of Austen’s remark about the beating rain. She was desolate when she had to leave London suddenly and couldn’t be there to superintend the publication of Emma further. Now she is sensing deeply that she won’t see London again. We are lacking the savage wit we’ve had, a certain kind of joke that hardly finds social acceptance because she has not the strength or energy,but she jokes on too.

6 Responses

<My dear Caroline
I am glad to have an opportunity of writing to you again, for my last Note was written so long before it was sent, that it seemed almost good for nothing. The note to your Papa is to announce the death of that excellent woman Mrs Elizth Leigh; it came here this morning enclosed in a Letter to Aunt Cassandra. -We all feel that we have lost a most valued old freind; but the death of a person at her advanced age, so fit to die, & by her own feelings so ready [underlined] to die, is not to be regretted. She has been so kind as to leave a little remembrance of L20 to your Grandmama. – I have had a letter from Scarlets this morning, with a very tolerable account of health there. -We have also heard from Godmersham, & the day of your Uncle & Fanny's coming is fixed; they leave home tomorrow senight; spend two days in Town & are to be with us on Thursday May 2nd – We are to see your Cousin Edward likewise, but probably not quite [p.2] so soon. -Your Uncle Henry talks of being in Town again on Wednesday. He will have spent a complete fortnight at Godmersham, & no doubt it will have done him good. -Tell your Mama that he came back from Steventon much pleased with his visit to her. Your Grandmama is not quite [underlined] well, she seldom gets through the 24 hours without some pain in her head, but we hope it is lessening, & that a continuance of such weather as may allow her to be out of doors & hard at work every day, will gradually remove it. -Cassy has had great pleasure in working this -whatever it may be- for you; I beleive she rather fancied it might do for a quilt for your little wax doll, but you will find a use for it if you can I am sure. -She often talks of you; & we should all be very glad to see you again -and if your Papa comes on Wednesday, as we rather hope, & it suited everybody that you should come with him, it would give us great pleasure. -Our Fair at Alton is next Saturday which is also Mary Jane's Birthday, & you would be thought an addition [underlined]on such a great day. -[p.3]I shall say no more because I know th[ere may be ?] many circumstances to make it inconvenient at home. -We are almost ashamed to include your Mama in the invitation, or to ask her [underlined] to be at the trouble of a long ride for so few days as we shall be having disengaged, for we must [underlined] wash before the Gm* Party come & therefore Monday would be [the -omitted] last day that our House could be comfortable for her; but if she does feel disposed to pay us a little visit & you could all [underlined]come, so much the better.-We do not like to invite [underlined] her to come on Wednesday, to be turned out of the house on Monday….[The last five lines of the letter mentioned James-Edward and the 'sad weather' which they had for him at Easter, so that his ride on Saturday 'could only be tolerable by its taking him home'. DLF]

Many Thanks. A thank for every Line, & as many to Mr. W.
Digweed for coming. We have been wanting very much to hear of your
Mother, & are happy to find she continues to mend, but her illness must have been a very serious one indeed. — When she is really recovered, she ought to try change of air & come over to us. — Tell your Father I am very much obliged to him for his share of your Letter & most sincerely join in the hope of her being eventually [much torn] the better her present Discipline. She has the comfort moreover of being confined in such weather as gives one little temptation to be out. It is really too bad & has been too bad for a long time, much worse than anybody can bear, & I begin to think it will never be fine again. This is a finesse of mine, for I have often observed that if one writes about the Weather, it is generally completely changed before the
Letter is read. I wish it may prove so now, & that when Mr. W. Digweed reaches Steventon tomorrow, he may find You have had a long series of hot, dry weather. We are a small party at present, only GrandMama, Mary Jane & myself — Yalden’s Coach cleared off the rest yesterday. I suppose it is known at Steventon that Uncle Frank & Aunt Cassandra were to go to Town on some business of Uncle Henry’s — & that Aunt Martha had some business of her own which determined her to go at the same time; — but that Aunt Frank determined to g05 likewise & spend a few days with her family, may not be known — nor that two other places in the Coach were taken by Capt. & Mrs Clement. — Little
Cass went also, & does not return at present. They are all going to Broadstairs again. — The Aunt Cass: & the Aunt Martha did not mean to stay beyond two whole days, but the Uncle Frank & his Wife proposed being pressed to remain till Saturday.

I am glad you recollected to mention your being come home. My
heart began to sink within me when I had got so far through your Letter without its being mentioned. I was dreadfully afraid that you might be detained at Winchester by severe illness, confined to your Bed perhaps &. quite unable to hold a pen, & only dating from Steventon in order, with a mistaken sort of Tenderness, to deceive me. — But now, I have no doubt of your being at home, I am sure you would not say it so seriously unless it actually were so. — We saw a countless number of Postchaises full of Boys pass by yesterday morning — full of future Heroes, Legislators, Fools, & Vilains [sic]. — You have never thanked me for my last Letter, which went by the Cheese. I cannot bear not to be thanked. You will not pay us a visit yet of course, we must not think of it. Your Mother must get well first, & you must go to Oxford & not be elected; after that, a little change of scene may be good for you, & Your Physicians I hope will order you to the Sea, or to a house by the side of a very considerable pond. — Oh: it rains again; it beats against the window. — Mary Jane & I have been wet through once already today, we set off in the Donkey Carriage for Farringdon as I wanted to see the improvements Mr. Woolls is making, but we were obliged to turn back before we got there, but not soon enough to avoid a Pelter all the way home. We met Mr Woolls — I talked of its being bad weather for the Hay –& he returned me the comfort of its being much worse for the Wheat. — We hear that Mrs Seymour does not quit Tangier — Why & Wherefore? – Do you know that our Browning is gone? — You mus prepare for a William” when you come, a goodlooking Lad, civil & quiet, & seeming likely to do. –Good bye. I am sure Mr WD. will be astonished at my writing so much, for the Paper is so thin that he will be able to count the Lines, if not to read them.-Yours affectionately J. Austen

My dear James

We suppose the Trial is to take place this week, but we only feel
sure that it cannot have taken place yet because we have heard nothing of it. A Letter from Godmersham today tells us that Henry as well as William Knight goes to France with his Uncle. Yours Ever-J.A.
Mr Edward Austen
Steventon
By favour of
Mr. W. Digweed

Nancy Mayer: Laundry usually took up the whole day. All the bed and table linen were washed as well as other items– towels, etc. that could be boiled and rubbed with brown soap. All the beds were changed. The servants in the house were kept busy even if the laundry was done by a woman and her crew who came in to handle the load.

After every thing was washed, it had to be hung up or out. If you have never hung up wet sheets, I can assure you that it is a wet uncomfortable job, especially for shorter people. Even on a warm day, hanging sheets was a problem because wet sheets are heavier.

I can well understand Jane’s concern because even in the 20th century before the automatic washing machine and dryer , doing the laundry occupied most of a Monday.

Christy Somers: I can just imagine how thoroughly busy, intrusive, & intensive a ‘wash-day; must have been under the circumstances … this letter must have been very special & flattering to Caroline at such an age … She was 10 years old -with her 11th birthday coming up in June; uncle Frank’s daughter, Mary-Jane was turning 9 on the 27th; and uncle Charles’ daughter, Cassandra-Esten (Cassy) was 7.

And even if she was privately feeling poorly, JA was able to attend to enough detail so as to elevate the needs of the child, as well as satisfy the natural curiosities belonging to all of the adult matters & necessities which would have b een usually interesting to the younger set in a large extended family.

Me: Washday was a drag, exhausting, the whole house damp from it — well at least the first floor and Chawton House was the kind of place where you couldn’t escape to some other realm of the house.

What’s more at the Austens’ level of income, they may not have stirred the pots of swirling cooking sheets and linen, but they would be right there helping in every way. They might have stirred the linen too. They keep only a couple of servants …

I have actually seen a mangle. They could not have been easy to drag clothes through to wring them out.

We see Austen sitting down with servants to have a snack, getting them books, she is involved. I sort of imagine Mary Lloyd Austen was the type of mistress who left the kitchen and washing area having told others to work hard.

Clare Shepherd: We had a mangle in the late 40s and early 50s. I still remember the smell of soak flakes, stream and drying clothes. The bangle had two wooden rollers in an iron frame. It was operated by a handle and I remember my mother getting hot and bothered using the device. I hated the smell of washday ( usually Monday in most homes) and the fact that dinner was always cold sliced meat from Sunday’s roast.

Diane Reynolds: My grandmother used a mangle in the 1960s. As a young child, I found it quite fascinating, but had no idea … In England in the late 1970s, I had to take clothes from the washing machine and put them into a separate spinner, then hang them to dry. As it seemed to be perpetually chilly and damp, it was a species of torture, as the clothes never seemed to fully dry, and certainly were never nice and hot and fluffy the way they come out of a dryer … but these, I realize, are not the worst problems in the world.

Me: It was enough to make a woman miserable on top of all else she might be enduring in a given day. And it would be part of the dreaded wash day in the 18th through the early 20th century let’s recall before the clothes washing machine was invented.

Including this kind of detail in Sarah’s activities and how it felt to do it in a already filthy gown is part of the strength of Jo Baker’s Longbourne. Note we don’t see Daisy doing this in Downton Abbey — cleaning a hearth is not as bad. I have cleaned hearths in the UK — I never did go near any complete mangle and when I watched my mother turn the thing that turned the two wooden rollers and pull I knew it was very hard physical work.

I count 20 more letters after this one by Austen and then a handful
after her death from Cassandra to others. We have spent four years on
this projects; we will be done in half a year. What next?

This letter to young niece Caroline has already been well covered by
Ellen, Diana and a more satiric reading by Arnie while Nancy has
filled in for us the ardors of washing.

The letter reports family news–as others have note, the death of that
relative and “that excellent woman” Mrs. Elizabeth Leigh. Others have
cross-referenced and determined she was 80, old in that day. All JA
tells us that Elisabeth Leigh was old, without giving her age: “her
advanced age, so fit to die, and by her own feelings so ready to die,
is not to be regretted.” We might feel the same of someone who had
reached 100 and lived a full life. As we focus on the Biblical/
religious Austen, I can’t help but hear the echo of Ecclesiastes’ “for
everything there is a season… a time to be born and a time to die.”
If a bit dictatorial in telling Caroline what to feel, there is a
comfort also to a young niece who might be concerned about death and
monsters in the closet.

I enjoyed the details about the “whatever it might be” sewn by Cassy–
perhaps a quilt for Caroline’s “little wax doll.” JA may be dismissive
of the handiwork –whatever it is–but she enters into the child’s
mind, if in an amused way– surely Caroline “will find a use for it,”
as children do.

JA notes the “kind” but “little” “remembrance” of 20 pounds–about
$2,000 to her mother from E. Leigh. Not an inheritance certainly, but
a token. Is there a touch of bitterness that the three of them get
cast crumbs but are mostly overlooked, “remembered” but in small ways?
(We remember too JEAL’s inheritance.)

There’s much visiting with relatives–certainly being so close to
Godmersham put JA and C in the middle of the social loop, making it
less likely they would become peripheral or overlooked. Though the
letter is written to Caroline, it is clearly meant to convey news to
the parents–is Austen trying to give Caroline some power by giving
her news and information first, before the parents? In any case, it
seems typical JA indirection. Certainly conveying through Caroline the
info that her mother, if she visited, could only stay five days “to be
turned out of the house on Monday” is more light and charming than
conveying the news directly, though I am finding the words “turned out
of the house” interesting. Are they a reminder, after all these years,
than JA still remembers being “turned out” of Steventon?

JA tells Caroline she would be a “great addition” if she could come,
dangling the fair in Alton and Mary Jane’s birthday, both treats
likely delightful to a young girl, but also discourages her mother
from coming with the backhanded invitation: “We are almost ashamed to
include your mother in the invitation or to ask her to be at the
trouble of a long ride for such a few days …” Everything in the
letter seems designed to entice Caroline to beg to come–the flattery
of the letter addressed to you, the warm invitation the fair, the
birthday–while discouraging Mary. But perhaps she is hoping her
reverse psychology will bring Mary for a short stay? Couldn’t Mary
have simply moved over to Godmersham? Would it be understood that a
child like Caroline would have stayed through the washing?

We have news that Henry is perhaps recovering from the shock of
bankruptcy after his stay at Godmersham–have new plans been
formulated?–and then have JA’s wry comments about her mother “not
quite well,” every day having “some pain in her head.” Interestingly,
Jane predicts good weather (the letter is written April 21) and the
chance for her mother to be outdoors and “hard at work” will effect a
cure. I can’t help but contrast Mrs. Austen’s apparent enjoyment of
gardening with Mrs. Elton’s irritation at having to pick strawberries
for half an hour.

Finally, this is a letter that reveals only the surface Jane–nothing
about the books, reading, writing and publishing that are so central
to her existence.

Nancy: This was the year without a sunmmer when temperatures were below average ;it snowed in some places in May and the rain ruined many crops. It was a year of excessive rain. The people in England suffeing through floods this winter can appreciate the disaster excessive rain could be.It does seem that they just had rain with out any floods where they were.

As many know seemingly unceasing rain can be depressing. In several places it has been thought that suicides increased during period of rain that limited movment outside of the house.

Also, while oil cloth existed and was used for fishermen’s coats and trousers, ordinary people mostly depemded on felted wool coats . Their umbrellas were not up to a downpour, either.

I don’t blame her for being a bit down. (not that Ellen blamed her.)

Me: Let me add to all that has been said on letters 142-43 — the weather too I find the flatness or forced feel of some of the jokes, the occasional tediousness — a sign of her illness. I can’t prove that — all we have is that on Fanny and her father’s visit Aunt Jane did not walk with them and Cassandra did, and the trip to Cheltenham — still I find it indicative.

We are entered on her decline; we have again to remember that much was destroyed — in the case of (famously) Alcott’s sister who died, it ‘s presented in Little Women as all heroism and serenity and in the older versions, that was said; more recently we have evidence that she raged, was very angry, did not at all go gentle into the night …

Signs come earlier in retrospect — we think we had no warning but we did — it’s true that we can invent or imagine looking back and yet there is truth to saying there was the first sign.

Somewhat less grim — in the 1950s in the US there were still sold clothes washing machines that were circular and came with a wring-out attachment on top, which was a version of a mangle. My mother had one and I watched her wring out clothes and put them on a line — where? Well she strung a line across a New York City street in the Bronx that reached to an apartment on the other side of that street. How they did that I have no idea. I used to be afraid she’d fall …

I have followed your directions & find your Handwriting admirable. If you continue to improve as much as you have done, perhaps I may not be obliged to shut my eyes at all half a year hence. — I have been very much entertained by your story of Carolina & her aged Father, it made me laugh heartily, & I am particularly glad to find you so much alive upon any topic of such absurdity, as the usual description of a Heroine’s father. — You have done it full justice — or if anything be wanting, it is
the information of the venerable old Man’s having married when only Twenty one, & being a father at Twenty two.

I had an early opportunity of conveying your Letter to Mary Jane,
having only to throw it out of [the omitted] window at her as she was romping with your Brother in the Back Court. — She thanks you
for it-& answers your questions through me. — I am to tell you that she has passed her time at Chawton very pleasantly indeed, that she does not miss Cassy so much as she expected, & that as to Diana’s Temple she is ashamed to say it has never been worked at since you went away — She is very glad that you found Fanny again. — I suppose you had worn her in your stays without knowing it, & if she tickled you, thought it only a flea.

Edward’s visit has been a great pleasure to us. He has not lost
one good quality or good Look, & is only altered in being improved by being some months older than when we saw him last. He is getting very near our own age, for we do not grow older of course …
[Complimentary close and signature cut away]
Chawton
Monday July 15-
Miss C. Austen
Steventon